By A. L. - 20 Sep 2007

I'll try any message or method to get people to conserve natural habitat
and be good environmental stewards. Unfortunately, Jewish laws (and thus the
Bible) are not the best places to start--unless of course one is talking to
Christians who believe that the Bible is the word of God and thus they will
not behave righteously towards the earth unless it can be found (or showed
to them) that it is in some way sinful if one transgresses against the land.

The Bible unfortunately, has mixed messages about the preservation of the
earth. One is told to have "dominion" over the land (whether that is a
correct translation or not) and many Christians (especially the
fundamentalists) will use that passage as a convenient excuse to rape the
land at will. Christianity is after, I believe, a religion that promotes
narcissistic (or egocentric) behavior because it has less to do with
behaving well and honorably for the extrinsic sake of doing so than it does
for the quid pro quo effect of "I am doing this in order to reap my personal
salvation" which is something done for an intrinsic effect. It is
essentially about self-love and not for the love of others or the love of
the land.

Nonetheless, like I said in the beginning: If this works then go for it.
You will note however that the quotes you use are primarily about fruit
baring trees and not about nature in general. The Jews (and we must think in
the context of the times in which these texts were written) were not
concerned with environmental protection (their world's population was
minuscule when compared to what their region has now) and their need to
preserve fruit trees (as a law given in the Torah) was because, in fact,
people were already abusing nature: They were destroying the trees that fed
them.

It would seem that humans have a predilection towards avaricious
behavior; they are rapacious by nature. Is Christian or Jewish doctrine a
good place to teach respect for nature? Probably not. But again, if it works
on some people then go for it.

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